A friend visited me from the coast over New Year’s, a dear friend. For the most part our time together was a blessing, a re-visitation of our shared interests and beliefs after many years apart. When he saw the way I live now, however, he interpreted the state of disrepair and chaos in my home as major moral backsliding, a dangerous degree of failure on the brink of collapse. His solution would be to bring in the biggest dumpster available and wipe it all away, give me a fresh start. He left without implementing his plan, thank God.
Afterward I wondered why I wouldn’t appreciate his help. I came to the conclusion that it’s because I see these piles of stuff and badly mingled projects as raw data, possibly containing important information about my state of being and how I got here. It’s because I have hope that I’ll learn more about myself as I unmingle and sort, then deliberately remove that which does not belong here anymore, keeping what does. I have hope that would be the real fresh start.
Raw data is all we have at the moment about Judge Valeriano Saucedo, our local Lindsay boy known familiarly as “Val” by classmates and teachers, family and friends. His list of successes and contributions, including mayor of this town, is a source of pride to many in the community, Anglos and Latinos alike. The story that hit the front pages of several papers last week about the investigation and pending hearing before the Committee on Judicial Ethics was a blow not only to his reputation, but also to us.
Thanks to a link in the first Fresno Bee article, I found the Committee’s report and printed it off to read carefully. The picture that emerged on first reading was raw, a story of smooth but persistent entrapment like a spider’s web. The words in the text messages quoted made me queasy, not just for the woman, his courtroom clerk, but also for Val. I began wondering if he was having a bout of temporary insanity, the kind that comes with falling in love.
On second reading I realized this story is partial. Although the report does not state where the information came from, it must be supposed that it is the clerk’s story and that the documents (including electronic messages) were delivered to the Committee by her. Until Val’s story is told, we will have only her half of the raw data to process. And even then, we will never know the ephemeral raw data: things spoken between them, and all the forms of non-verbal communication exchanged between humans like glances and touch, postures and movements.
As I read her story, however, I couldn’t help but wonder what possesses men to make such power plays on women. I could identify with the situation entirely, unfortunately from the woman’s place. It took me far too many years to understand men’s power plays for what they are, and not real advances of affection. From the picture presented in the report, I could imagine that even the man may not have realized his motivation for making such improper moves until he was called on it by her. Maybe not even then.
This is why we have rules about ethical behavior and laws about sexual harassment. It’s all too common for this kind of thing to destroy families, make work environments intolerable, erode people’s mental health. If the clerk’s allegations are true, where Val made his real mistake is in not following the rules, abusing his power.
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Trudy Wischemann is a non-native Lindsayite who
writes. You can send her your thoughts
and stories c/o P.O. Box 1374 or leave a comment below.
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